Out of all of the pre-requisites for the Economics major, this is definitely the hardest class. If you do not have a strong background in Statistics and are not prepared, the later content in the class will be difficult to process quickly and stack up against you. While I did struggle in this class, I do not fault the professor as I feel like he conveyed the content well enough. Chetverikov has very engaging lectures despite the tough content. A lot lays on final, so prepare accordingly and do not blow it off for the last couple weeks. Hard class, great professor.

He follows the department curve strictly:
25% A
35% B
25% C

You cannot use a graphing calculator on exams to compute calculations. Only a 'simple calculator' is allowed. It is slightly unfair as other ECON 41 Professors allow students to use one.

Homework questions are graded for accuracy, and are due weekly. All work must be shown.

Disclaimer- This was the first online quarter
Let me start off by saying I didn't like the class. This class was the hardest econ class ive taken ( and ive taken 1,2 and 11) The professors lectures were a drag to listen to and most of the time went like 10-15 mins over the designated lecture time. The lectures were recorded but they were boring to listen to, I almost never did them in one sitting. As for the syllabus, he provided 4 different grading scheme due to the different situations going on. HW was always 10%, Midterm was either 0/45/30/60% with the Final being 90/45/60/30% respectively. As for the actual content of the class, the professor's lectures weren't very clear. He stated more theorems, definitions and proofs than showed how to use them in an actual example which is in my eyes the most important part because he didn't ask any theorem/definition/proof questions on the exams. The midterm was pretty straight forward, the average was like 90-92% depending on what time you took it (he provided 8am and 8pm exams to accommodate time differences). The high average was undoubtably due to people collaborating, bc the professor did not write an easy midterm. The final averages were 85-89% (bc he again provided 2 different times for the exam). The final was 70 questions and was not easy at all. The way he calculated grades was also quite unusual because he calculated your grade compared to the people who took the midterm/final at the same time as you and not compared to the whole class. I didn't do well on the exams but still managed to get a C in the class. But it was definitely a difficult class.

Denis was a great professor, though I didn't spend much time in class because I had another class at the same time. He's very friendly and always willing to answer questions. He assigns grades based off of rank within the class, so make sure you step up when it comes to exams. Scoring above the curve is a good way to get an A. He makes the exams pretty easy, especially in comparison to the reviews from previous quarters. The downside to this is that you definitely need to get an A (or something close to that) on exams in order to get an A in the class. Averaging a C on exams however, is probably enough to get a low B or high C.
My advice is to pay close attention to the homework and do all of the practice problems he gives you. Doing all of those are probably enough to get an A in the class.

If you have all the time in the world to attend office hours and hop around to various TA sessions, then this course might be doable. This is not the professor to take if you're also balancing a myriad of other extracurricular activities. I'm a working student balancing various positions, so making time to review and grasp the in-class material, in addition to the homework, and practice finals/midterms, to then craft good questions for clarification was often challenging. Also, as a transfer student I'd say it would have definitely helped to have taken a Stats class before this.

Disclaimer: I only attended the first 3 discussions, but TA wasn't great at helping me understand concepts and develop intuition.

Homework: In all honesty, I heavily relied on Chegg solutions to even begin to understand how to approach the homework problems. His in-class examples were too simple and didn't translate into understanding more challenging variations. In addition, he didn't do a great job of helping us develop our intuition. He would throw new problem types at us in the homework that were not once covered in class. To be fair, the TA's would go over the homework the following week, but not all TA's are made equally. It was only in my PLF session that I even began to grasp the real world applications of the things we were learning.

Midterm: The practice problems were definitely reflected in the actual midterm. That being said, in my experience the in-class lecture and homework didn't prepare you much for either the practice or actual midterm. You were actually learning new things when going over the material. So, unless you had the time review the practice problems in time to meet with Denis or your TA, you might have not been sure how to answer a good portion of them. There was also no solution manual, just an answer key.

Final: He rushed us through the last sections and glossed over the null-hypothesis topic. He didn't even solve actual problems in class and they definitely showed up in the final. But again, I cannot be sure how big of a role not attending my discussion played in my lack of understanding. Nevertheless, you were again learning new things as you were trying to solve the practice final. So, you had to find the time to go to office hours and TA sections to even begin to understand how to approach the problems. So many strategies and methods to solve for answers were just never taught in class.

So yeah. Unless you have a light course load, previous stats experience, and time to religiously attend TA section AND their office hours, in addition to Denis' OH, don't take this class. The methods in themselves are quite simple though, and it just takes simple memorization to problem solve. So if you can ask questions and identify the steps to solve a problem, you should be okay.

The lectures and homework assignments were extremely useful. Professor Chetverikov was very helpful and patient with answering students' questions, even right after the lectures. While most professors are unwilling to stay after class to talk to students, he makes sure that everyone who has questions gets a chance to ask him directly. The weekly homework is relatively short and very doable, not to mention, great review for the midterm and final. The midterm was easy (I got 100%), as long as you mildly pay attention in lecture and make sure to understand all the homework problems, including non graded ones. The final was slightly more difficult, mostly because its so damn long. He posted 2 practice finals, but I only did one and reviewed all the homework, which was enough to get 67/70 (I also guessed on the last 3 cause they were kinda hard and I just wanted to leave lol). Overall, one of the better classes I've taken at UCLA, even though some topics weren't that engaging.

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Before I took the class, I was worried because everyone says it's one of the most difficult lower divs for Econ. I had a pretty tough time with Econ 11 so I was prepared for the worst. The class actually turned out to be relatively easy, especially the midterm. Discussions are not mandatory but are pretty helpful because they go over a lot of problems that show up on the homework or practice exams. Make sure you take down notes because it'll be hard to find how to do a certain problem if you don't have it down somewhere. Professor has some witty jokes now and then which keep things interesting.

I highly recommend Chetverikov over Rojas because it seemed like my friends in Rojas were having a really tough time. Do the practice exams before the midterm and final and you can easily get an A!

The lectures and homework assignments were extremely useful. Professor Chetverikov was very helpful and patient with answering students' questions, even right after the lectures. While most professors are unwilling to stay after class to talk to students, he makes sure that everyone who has questions gets a chance to ask him directly. The weekly homework is relatively short and very doable, not to mention, great review for the midterm and final. The midterm was extremely easy, as long as you pay attention in lecture and understand all the homework problems (including non graded ones). The final was slightly more difficult, mostly because its 70 questions. He posted 2 practice finals, but I only did one and reviewed all the homework, which was enough to do very well on the final. Overall, one of the most interesting classes I've taken at UCLA, even though some topics weren't that engaging.

Chetverikov was very clear in his expectations and was always willing to help after class. Wookun Kim and Changsu Ko were very capable TAs.

Midterm was a piece of cake, but the final was very difficult. I wouldn't say Denis is the worst professor ever and that you should avoid him as much as possible though. Going to lecture is quite valuable. He isn't the most engaging person in the world, but he does care. He hold office hours and is willing to answer many questions. I'm kinda pissed I got a B, but the final is worth 60% of the grade and is REALLY hard!!